Showing papers on "Universal grammar published in 2007"

Universal Moral Grammar: Theory, Evidence, and the Future

Abstract: Scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus renewed attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program which has gained attention and has been profiled in Science, Nature, The New York Times, and other publications is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in Chomsky's program in linguistics. This approach is thought to provide a fruitful perspective from which to investigate human moral competence from computational, ontogenetic, behavioral, physiological, and phylogenetic perspectives. In this forthcoming article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, I outline a framework for UMG and describe some of the evidence supporting it, including recent findings in developmental psychology, legal anthropology, comparative criminal law, and cognitive neuroscience. I also propose a novel computational analysis of trolley problem intuitions, which draws on a diverse set of ideas and traditions, including lexical semantics, common law theory, the philosophy of action, and Marr's three-level approach to cognitive science. Finally, I distinguish UMG from the dual-process model of moral judgment advocated by researchers such as Joshua Greene, Jonathan Haidt, and Cass Sunstein. Unlike Greene, I argue that the critical issue in the theory of moral cognition is not whether moral intuitions are linked to emotions - clearly they are - but how to characterize the appraisal system those intuitions presuppose, and in particular whether that system incorporates elements of a sophisticated jurisprudence. Chomsky transformed linguistics and cognitive science by showing that ordinary language is susceptible to precise formal analysis and by rooting principles of grammar in the human bioprogram. UMG holds out the prospect of doing the same for aspects of ordinary human moral cognition. Initial efforts to explain trolley problem intuitions within this framework suggest that individuals are intuitive lawyers capable of drawing intelligent distinctions between superficially similar cases, although their basis of doing so is often obscure. Future research on moral grammar should begin from this premise, moving beyond the limited example of trolley problems and other doctrinally marginal "dilemmas" to the core concepts of universal fields like torts, contracts, and criminal law, which investigate the rules and representations implicit in common moral intuitions with unparalleled care and sophistication. Chomsky emphasized that rigorous formulation in linguistics is not merely a pointless technical exercise but an important diagnostic and heuristic tool, because only by pushing a precise but inadequate formulation to an unacceptable conclusion can we gain a better understanding of the relevant data and of the inadequacy of our existing attempts to explain them. Likewise, Marr warned against making inferences about cognitive systems from neurophysiological findings without "a clear idea about what information needs to be represented and what processes need to be implemented." Cognitive scientists who take these ideas seriously and who seek to understand human moral cognition must devote more attention to developing computational theories of moral competence. Legal theory will play an important part in this process.

Grammars in Contact: a cross-linguistic perspective

Abstract: [Extract] Languages can resemble each other in categories, constructions, and meanings, and in the actual forms used to express them.1 Categories can be similar because they are universal—for instance, every language has some way of asking a question or framing a command. Occasionally, two languages share a form by pure coincidence. In both Dyirbal, an Australian language from North Queensland, and Jarawara, an Arawa language from Southern Amazonia, bari means 'axe'. Both Goemai (Angas-Goemai subgroup of Chadic, Afroasiatic: Birgit Hellwig, p.c.) and Manambu (Ndu family, New Guinea) happen to use a:s for 'dog'. Similarities due to universal properties of a language are of interest for universal grammar, while chance coincidences are no more than curious facts.What these two kinds of similarities have in common is that they tell us nothing about the history of languages or their speakers. In this volume we focus on two other types of similarities: those due to genetic inheritance and those due to areal contact.

Linguistics in Cognitive Science: The state of the art

Abstract: The special issue ofThe Linguistic Review on “The Role of Linguistics in Cognitive Science” presents a variety of viewpoints that complement or contrast with the perspective offered in Foundations of Language (Jackendoff 2002a). The present article is a response to the special issue. It discusses what it would mean to integrate linguistics into cognitive science, then shows how the parallel architecture proposed in Foundations seeks to accomplish this goal by altering certain fundamental assumptions of generative grammar. It defends this approach against criticisms both from mainstream generative grammar and from a variety of broader attacks on the generative enterprise, and it reflects on the nature of Universal Grammar. It then shows how the parallel architecture applies directly to processing and defends this construal against various critiques. Finally, it contrasts views in the special issue with that of Foundations with respect to what is unique about language among cognitive capacities, and it conjectures about the course of the evolution of the language faculty. I am honored that The Linguistic Review has suggested Foundations of Language (Jackendoff 2002a, henceforth FL) as a “unifying starting point” for discussion of the role of linguistics in cognitive science. The fruits of this discussion, a special issue of the journal (Ritter 2005b, henceforth TLR), represent a fascinating microcosm of the state of the art, offering a profusion of fields and points of view. This response to the special issue has two goals. First, I wish to reiterate the positions taken in FL, defend them against the critiques in some of the papers, and show how they bear on or even resolve issues raised by some of the others. 1 1. Several authors issue blasts against generative grammar, characterizing it purely in terms of

Linguistics in Cognitive Science : The state of the art. Authors' reply

Abstract: The special issue of The Linguistic Review on "The Role of Linguistics in Cognitive Science" presents a variety of viewpoints that complement or contrast with the perspective offered in Foundations of Language (Jackendoff2002a). The present article is a response to the special issue. It discusses what it would mean to integrate linguistics into cognitive science, then shows how the parallel architecture proposed in Foundations seeks to accomplish this goal by altering certain fundamental assumptions of generative grammar. It defends this approach against criticisms both from mainstream generative grammar and from a variety of broader attacks on the generative enterprise, and it reflects on the nature of Universal Grammar. It then shows how the parallel architecture applies directly to processing and defends this construal against various critiques. Finally, it contrasts views in the special issue with that of Foundations with respect to what is unique about language among cognitive capacities, and it conjectures about the course of the evolution of the language faculty.

Third language acquisition: why it is interesting to generative linguists:

Abstract: The present article reviews three collections of papers edited by Cenoz and colleagues on the topic of third language (L3) acquisition from perspectives including psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and education. Our focus is on psycholinguistics, in particular, lexical acquisition studies, and with particular reference to two central notions in the study of L3, namely, language-selectiveness and cross-linguistic influence. The article also discusses expansion of the study of L3 acquisition into the Universal Grammar/Second Language Acquisition (UG/SLA) paradigm, and closes by looking at future directions for the L3 field.

Machine learning theory and practice as a source of insight into universal grammar

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the possibility that machine learning approaches to naturallanguage processing (NLP) being developed in engineering-oriented computational linguistics (CL) may be able to provide specific scientific insights into the nature of human language. We argue that, in principle, machine learning (ML) results could inform basic debates about language, in one area at least, and that in practice, existing results may offer initial tentative support for this prospect. Further, results from computational learning theory can inform arguments carried on within linguistic theory as well.

What counts as evidence in linguistics: the case of innateness

Abstract: 1. Preface 2. What counts as evidence in linguistics?: An introduction (by Penke, Martina) 3. Typological evidence and Universal Grammar (by Newmeyer, Frederick J.) 4. Remarks on the relation between language typology and Universal Grammar: Commentary on Newmeyer (by Baltin, Mark) 5. Does linguistic explanation presuppose linguistic description? (by Haspelmath, Martin) 6. Remarks on description and explanation in grammar: Commentary on Haspelmath (by Aissen, Judith) 7. Author's response (by Haspelmath, Martin) 8. From UG to Universals: Linguistic adaptation through iterated learning (by Kirby, Simon) 9. Form, meaning and speakers in the evolution of language: Commentary on Kirby, Smith and Brighton (by Croft, William A.) 10. Author's response (by Kirby, Simon) 11. Why assume UG? (by Wunderlich, Dieter) 12. What kind of evidence could refute the UG hypothesis?: Commentary on Wunderlich (by Tomasello, Michael) 13. Author's response: Is there any evidence that refutes the UG hypothesis? (by Wunderlich, Dieter) 14. A question of relevance: Some remarks on standard languages (by Weiss, Helmut) 15. The Relevance of Variation: Remarks on Weiss's Standard-Dialect-Problem (by Simon, Horst J.) 16. Author's response (by Weiss, Helmut) 17. Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition (by Eckman, Fred) 18. 'Internal' versus 'external' universals: Commentary on Eckman (by White, Lydia) 19. Author's response: 'External' universals and explanation in SLA (by Eckman, Fred) 20. What counts as evidence in historical linguistics? (by Fischer, Olga) 21. Abstraction and performance: Commentary on Fischer (by Lightfoot, David W.) 22. Author's response (by Fischer, Olga) 23. Index

What counts as evidence in linguistics?: the case of innateness

Abstract: 1. Preface 2. What counts as evidence in linguistics?: An introduction (by Penke, Martina) 3. Typological evidence and Universal Grammar (by Newmeyer, Frederick J.) 4. Remarks on the relation between language typology and Universal Grammar: Commentary on Newmeyer (by Baltin, Mark) 5. Does linguistic explanation presuppose linguistic description? (by Haspelmath, Martin) 6. Remarks on description and explanation in grammar: Commentary on Haspelmath (by Aissen, Judith) 7. Author's response (by Haspelmath, Martin) 8. From UG to Universals: Linguistic adaptation through iterated learning (by Kirby, Simon) 9. Form, meaning and speakers in the evolution of language: Commentary on Kirby, Smith and Brighton (by Croft, William A.) 10. Author's response (by Kirby, Simon) 11. Why assume UG? (by Wunderlich, Dieter) 12. What kind of evidence could refute the UG hypothesis?: Commentary on Wunderlich (by Tomasello, Michael) 13. Author's response: Is there any evidence that refutes the UG hypothesis? (by Wunderlich, Dieter) 14. A question of relevance: Some remarks on standard languages (by Weiss, Helmut) 15. The Relevance of Variation: Remarks on Weiss's Standard-Dialect-Problem (by Simon, Horst J.) 16. Author's response (by Weiss, Helmut) 17. Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition (by Eckman, Fred) 18. 'Internal' versus 'external' universals: Commentary on Eckman (by White, Lydia) 19. Author's response: 'External' universals and explanation in SLA (by Eckman, Fred) 20. What counts as evidence in historical linguistics? (by Fischer, Olga) 21. Abstraction and performance: Commentary on Fischer (by Lightfoot, David W.) 22. Author's response (by Fischer, Olga) 23. Index

‘Needs only’ Analysis in Linguistic Ontogeny and Phylogeny

Abstract: Recently, linguists from several quarters have begun to unpack some of the assumptions and claims made in linguistics over the last 40 years, opening up new possibilities for synergies between linguistic theory and the variety of fields that engage with it. A key point of exploration is the relationship between external manifestations of language and the underlying mental model that produces and understands them. To what extent does it remain reasonable to argue that all humans ‘know’ certain things about language, even if they never demonstrate that knowledge? What is the status of knowledge that is only stimulated into expression by particular cultural input? Many have asked whether the human’s linguistic behaviour can be explained with recourse to less innate knowledge than Chomskian models traditionally assume.

Double Objects in Spanish as a Second Language: Acquisition of Morphosyntax and Semantics.

Abstract: This experimental study on the acquisition of the double-object construction in Spanish as a second language (L2) by a group of first language (L1) English adults investigates the role of Universal Grammar (UG) and its interaction with L1 in two modules of grammar: morphosyntax and semantics. The double-object construction in Spanish differs from its English counterpart in its morphosyntactic properties (case, clitic doubling, word order) and its semantics (interpretation of arguments and restrictions on the construction). Results show that L2 learners are sensitive to most of the morphosyntactic properties of the double-object construction but lag behind in the acquisition of its semantics. The experimental group shows evidence of UG-constrained acquisition in their sensitivity to morphosyntactic properties not instantiated in their L1 as well as in their nontarget but UG-licit analysis of the semantic restrictions of Spanish double objects. The dissociation between level of knowledge of morphosyntax and of semantics suggests that modularity of grammar is reflected in SLA exactly as it is in L1 acquisition.I am extremely grateful to Suzanne Flynn, Joyce Bruhn de Garavito, Andrew Stringfellow, Laura Colantoni, and Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux for their generous assistance in terms of comments, encouragement, sharing of materials, and statistical analyses. I also want to thank the teachers and students that participated in the study as well as three anonymous SSLA reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

Challenging Chomskyan Linguistics: The Case of Pirahã

Abstract: Chomsky’s theory of language is an accomplishment of the highest order, by any standards. A set of ideas that can excite and occupy some of the brightest minds in the world for over 5 decades, and give them all a sense of communality and feeling that they are engaged in an asymptotic approximation to the Truth, over this entire period of time, must be taken very seriously. What are the components of this theory? There are 2 fundamental ideas: (1) there are components of the form of grammars that are arbitrary from the perspective of meaning and computation (in some senses), but which form a regular and elegant subsystem that underlies the interpretation and physical manifestation of language, and (2) these components are part of our genetic endowment as Homo sapiens with no real explanation in standard Darwinian theory. Also important to Chomsky’s theory in principle and in practice is the idea that communication and the sociocultural milieu from which language might be argued to have emerged really have very little, perhaps nothing, to do with the core components of these genetically carried grammatical principles, labelled Universal Grammar (UG). In recent years, Chomsky has referred to UG as simply whatever the true theory is about the biological capabilities of humans for language. But this is neither a good summary of the praxis of Chomskyan theory, nor of Chomsky’s own writings on UG. Certainly it is not a useful indication of what his followers have been doing for years. UG in most studies is a set of highly specific grammatical constraints, principles, and parameters that ultimately determine how all human grammars will be for adult speakers, and how these grammars will be acquired as the first grammars of children learning them. In a heavily cited article from Science, Chomsky and his co-authors, Marc Hauser and Tecumseh Fitch, have suggested a single, greater feature of form that could underlie all the various principles of UG. This essential feature, they claim, is recursion . Although in that paper they neither define recursion nor say what predictions a recursive versus a nonrecursive grammar of a language might make, their paper has sparked a huge debate.

FOSSILIZED SECOND LANGUAGE GRAMMARS, Florencia Franceschina

Abstract: FOSSILIZED SECOND LANGUAGE GRAMMARS Florencia Franceschina Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005 Pp xxiv + 288 $13800 clothThis monograph by Franceschina presents an empirical study of what is known as Orwell's problem: a learnability problem manifested as lack of learning in spite of exposure to abundant and unambiguous positive input evidence The study is premised on three main assumptions: (a) Universal Grammar (UG) operates normally in all types of natural language acquisition, (b) first language (L1)-selected parameterized functional features (PFFs) are available in the acquisition of languages other than the L1, and (c) there is a critical period for the acquisition of PFFs Following Hawkins and Chan's (1997) failed functional features hypothesis (FFFH), Franceschina hypothesizes that in adult SLA, nativelike knowledge of PFFs will be restricted to the subset instantiated in the L1 Using gender marking in second language (L2) Spanish as a test case, the study addresses the following questions: (a) Can adult learners acquire nativelike knowledge of grammatical gender in the L2? (b) In adult L2 learners, is the possibility of nativelike attainment in the area of grammatical gender determined by the learner's L1? (c) What might prevent near-natives from reaching the same endstate knowledge as L1 speakers? Two experimental groups of adult near-natives with contrasting L1s (+gen vs −gen) relative to the target language and a control group of native speakers were formed and subsequently subjected to six experimental tasks that tapped into comprehension, production, and metalinguistic judgments The data from each test task separately underwent quantitative analyses, and the results consistently pointed to an advantage for the +gen group and, conversely, a disadvantage for the −gen group, thereby confirming the FFFH and, hence, Franceschina's own hypothesis

Physiological Linguistics, and Some Implications Regarding Disciplinary Autonomy and Unification

Abstract: Chomsky ' s current Biolinguistic (Minimalist) methodology is shown to comport with what might be called ' established ' aspects of biological method, thereby raising, in the biolinguistic domain, issues concerning biological autonomy from the physical sciences. At least current irreducibility of biology, including biolinguistics, stems in at least some cases from the very nature of what I will claim is physiological, or inter-organ/inter-component, macro-levels of explanation which play a new and central explanatory role in Chomsky ' s inter-componential (interface-based) explanation of certain (anatomical) properties of the syntactic component of Universal Grammar. Under this new mode of explanation, certain physiological functions of cognitive mental organs are hypothesized, in an attempt to explain aspects of their internal anatomy. Thus, the internal anatomy of the syntactic component exhibits features that enable it to effectively interface with (i.e. function in a coordinated fashion with) other ' adjacent ' organs, such as the Conceptual-Intensional (C-I) ( ' meaning ' ) system and the Sensory- Motor (SM) ( ' sound ' ) system. These two interface systems take as their inputs the assembled outputs of the syntactic component and, as a result of the very syntactic structure imposed by the syntax (as opposed to countless imaginable alternatives) are then able to assign their (linearized) sound and (compositional) meaning interpretations. If this is an accurate characterization, Chomsky ' s long-standing postulation of mental organs, and I will argue, the advancement of new hypotheses concerning physiological inter-organ functions, has attained in current biolinguistic Minimalist method a signifi cant unifi cation with foundational aspects of physiological explanation in other areas of biology.

Psycholinguistic perspectives on grammatical representations

Abstract: What is the use of psycholinguistic evidence for the theoretical linguist? Looking at the vast majority of theoretical-linguistic studies on grammatical phenomena, the im­ pression one will get is: not much. Even though theoretical linguists, including those working from the perspective of generative grammar, often pay lip service to the po­ tential relevance of psycholinguistic evidence, in practice, studies of grammar hardly ever take results from psycholinguistic research into consideration. Chomsky (1981: 9) notes, for example, that while evidence from language acquisition, experimenta­ tion on language processing, and evidence from language deficits is relevant, in prin­ ciple, to determining the properties of Universal Grammar and particular grammars, for some unspecified reason, evidence from these sources is ‘insufficient to provide much insight concerning these problems’, and that, therefore, the theoretical linguist is compelled to rely on grammar-internal considerations.

A “linguistic approach” to the idiosyncratic nature of second language acquisition: Monosyllabic place-holders and morpheme orders

Abstract: It is important that there be different approaches to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research, some of which will be contrasting and some complementary. In the former case, the contrast may lead to a review of assumptions which will result in mutual or unilateral enrichment. In the latter case, it is obvious that we are to aim at achieving a comprehensive view of SLA. In this respect, in the paper by De Bot, Lowie and Werspoor, “A Dynamic Systems Theory approach to second language acquisition”, while there is some room for a complementary approach, what stands out is a view contrasting with the Universal Grammar (UG) view. For instance, the authors mention Larsen-Freeman (2002) – one of the pioneers of the application of the Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) to SLA research – as suggesting that a UG approach and the DST may be two complementary perspectives, but they emphasize that Larsen-Freeman is very much on the side of emergentist (non-nativist) views. Furthermore, they make it clear that leading DST researchers “leave little room for nativist ideas on language acquisition” (p. 10). However, while the authors put the DST forward as the approach that can avoid the shortcomings of a partial model which only deals with cognitive aspects of language development, they fail to recognize that the cognitive approach has never claimed to have all the answers to the SLA phenomenon, and neither do they. In fact, what we would like to show in this commentary is that the “linguistic” or “cognitive” approach to SLA research can account (and even explain) why native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars are different. In order to show this, we will address two issues that De Bot, Lowie and Werspoor use as evidence against the nativist approach: Newport's (1991) “less is more” hypothesis and the authors' review of the “variation and morpheme order studies”. We will be discussing their views from the UG approach perspective which we refer to as the “Linguistic Approach” and which has its foundation in the nativist Chomskian tradition which, in the case of SLA research, is represented in volumes such as Liceras (1986), White (1989, 2003), Strozer (1994) and Hawkins (2001), among many others.

Early Spanish-English Bilingualism: Theoretical Issues, Empirical Analyses

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION. Bilingual communities are characterized by their social and linguistic heterogeneity, perhaps even more so than monolingual communities. Linguistically, the heterogeneity is evident in the proficiency continuum that develops in the languages involved. The linguist's concern is the study of this continuum, which in the case of Spanish, for instance, as an unofficial language in the United States, reflects processes of simplification and loss. The question arises whether this attrition occurs only across generations or also throughout the life of an individual, or whether it is the consequence of incomplete language acquisition by children who receive a reduced input in this language and for whom Spanish fulfills a reduced number of functions. To begin answering this question it becomes necessary to study the simultaneous acquisition of two languages as a first language (also referred to as 2L1, Meisel 1990, or BFLA), in order to identify the linguistic patterns developed before schooling in one (English in the U.S.) begins, which is the time when the Hispanic child begins to receive massive input in this language. This is not an easy task, however, because the contextual factors that to a large extent shape up the development of child bilingualism are diverse and complex, and lead to different types or degrees of bilingualism. Among these factors are the age at which the child is exposed to the two languages, the frequency with which the languages are spoken at home and in the community, family and community attitudes toward each of the languages and toward bilingualism. Here, I discuss in what ways some of these factors affect the acquisition of grammatical features of Spanish and English. Studies of BFLA from birth or at least from before age 3 have been done within the framework of the various theories proposed for monolingual acquisition: NATIVIST and CONSTRUCTIVIST approaches. Briefly, nativist theories affirm that children are genetically endowed with a Universal Grammar, a set of linguistic principles common to all languages which, together with language specific parameters, guide acquisition. By contrast, constructivist theories state that what is innate are cognitive abilities and general learning mechanisms that make possible the learning of language from the language input which the child receives in situated instances of communication. Some of the principles defended by constructivists are that learning is gradual, contextualized and piecemeal; that abstract structures emerge from specific constructions once a CRITICAL MASS is achieved; and that the sequence of acquisition of a grammatical feature is determined by its complexity and frequency in the target language. Studies of bilingual acquisition are relatively recent, despite their undeniable theoretical and practical value. From a practical perspective, it is necessary to put an end to some myths about bilingual acquisition--such as that it fosters language confusion or that it causes cognitive and language problems. Quite to the contrary, numerous studies have demonstrated that child bilingualism offers cognitive, linguistic and obvious social advantages (e.g. Bialystok 1999, De Houwer 1987, Genesee 2006, Genesee, Nicoladis & Paradis 1995, Meisel 1989, Paradis & Genesee 1996). From a theoretical perspective, the high frequency of child bilingualism requires that a theory of language acquisition seriously consider bilingual acquisition. Thus, the fundamental goal (though long term) of the research on 2L1 is the development of models that may account for how bilinguals acquire two linguistic systems at a time, and how these two systems are represented in the mind of the bilingual. Some researchers have observed that the principles put forward by constructivists are valid as well to account for the acquisition of 2L1 (e.g. Gathercole 2007, Rojas Nieto 2003). …

Focus on french as a foreign language: multidisciplinary approaches

Abstract: FOCUS ON FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES. Jean-Marc Dewaele (Ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2005. Pp. x + 242. 39.96 paper.This volume is a collection of 10 chapters that report on various research projects in SLA, all relating to the learning of French or the nature of French second language (L2) interlanguage (IL). Although the use of the descriptor “multidisciplinary” seems a bit of a stretch, a range of specific research questions is addressed, in varying contexts, including the acquisition of French as a L2 or foreign language, in naturalistic or instructional contexts, by speakers of various first languages (L1s) and at beginning or, often, advanced stages of acquisition. Whereas the volume naturally takes its place in what the editor refers to as “the Anglo-Saxon SLA world” (p. viii) with strong representation of the Universal Grammar perspective, there are also contributors working in variationist sociolinguistics and a traditional psycholinguistic framework.

Syllables, Morphemes and Bayesian Computational Models of Acquiring a Word Grammar

Abstract: Syllables, Morphemes and Bayesian Computational Models of Acquiring a Word Grammar C ¸ a˘gri C ¸ o ¨ ltekin Cem Bozs¸ahin Cognitive Science Cognitive Science and Computer Engineering Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara 06531 Turkey METU, Ankara 06531 Turkey cagri@xs4all.nl bozsahin@metu.edu.tr Abstract There are indeed phonological and prosodic cues for dis- cerning substrings smaller than words, namely syllables (rhythm), stress and pitch accents. In this work, we report a computational study which starts with the ability to iden- tify syllables, and learns the meaning and category of words and morphemes without the assumption that only words and morphemes have a meaning. The kind of meanings that the system starts with and learns more of is not lexical meanings, such as what it means to be a dog or to sleep (see Tenen- baum & Xu 2000 for a Bayesian way to tackle that prob- lem), but the combinatory meaning and its syntactic reflex in the form of a category, as a lexical hypothesis, for example how pisi-ler-e (kitty-PLU-DAT, Turkish), with the syllables pi·si·le·re, can come to be associated with a logical form such as to 0 (plu 0 cat 0 ) and the syntactic type N for nouns (and oth- ers, such as VP modifiers). We show that under a Bayesian scenario of hypothesis revision with the Universal Grammar as the provider of likelihoods and priors, starting with sylla- bles and the assumed ability to associate forms with mean- ings converges to a lexicalized grammar of words and mor- phemes, by showing a significant overlap with the lexical hy- potheses of a learning model which works with the assump- tion that only morphemes and words constructed from them have meanings. Crucially, morphology of words is a hidden variable in our model, and the input to the system are pairs of sequence of syllables (in lieu of phonological form, PF) and a logical form (LF), without any indication as to which syllable contributes to what part of the LF, or which part of the meaning of a mor- pheme is covered by a syllable. This is unlike the approach of Jack et al. (2006), another syllable-based acquisition model, in which a sequence of syllables is paired not with a possi- bly ambiguous LF but with a disambiguated representation of world meanings. We do not assume that the child knows pisi is kitty, and ler is plural; she might (wrongly) hypoth- esize pisi is plural and ler means kitty, or the first syllable of pisi (pi ) means kitty, etc. We also differ from Aronoff et al. (2006), whose model detects frequently-occurring sound sequences and hypothesizes that they are morphemes. Our model aims to learn the correct LF of the purported mor- pheme as well, not just its form. We report a computational study on the CHILDES database for learning a word grammar of Turkish nouns. The syllable-based model converges to a morpheme-based model in terms of over- laps in the set of lexical hypotheses. Morphology is a hidden variable in all models, and the search problem for hypotheses is narrowed down by a probabilistic conception of universal grammar a ` la Combinatory Categorial Grammar. The conver- gence of the syllable model suggests that morphemehood can be an emergent computational property. Keywords: Morphology, grammar, learning, Bayesian model. Introduction How can the meaning and category of words arise in the mind of a child? On one hand, we have the problem of identifying segments of speech as word-like units. On the other, we have the problem of identifying which meanings go with which substrings in speech. The assumption, common to both gener- ative and cognitive linguistics, is that the child has the innate capacity to associate forms with meaning, and it is a question of acquisition to tackle the problem of deciding which forms go with which meanings. A quick glance over the Turkish fragment of the child- directed speech in the CHILDES database reveals that 44% of the nouns are uninflected; the remaining 56% are inflected by means of affixes and clitics. The question then arises as to how the meaning and category of the inflected words, which constitute the majority, are acquired by the child. A common concept, influential at least since Bloomfield, is that morpheme is the minimal meaning-bearing element in natu- ral languages. Nevertheless, although there are clear phono- logical and prosodic cues for word boundaries (e.g. Jusczyk, 1999; Thiessen & Saffran, 2003), there are no apparent cues for morpheme boundaries, hence the task of learning mor- pheme meanings to come up with word meanings is not made easier by labeling some items as morphemes in the compe- tence grammar of adults. 1 Aksu-Koc & Slobin (1985); Peters & Menn (1993) report pro- duction data of respectively Turkish and English children of age 2;6 and younger, during which the child produces meaningless filler syl- lables. Peters & Menn data show this is not idiosyncratic to verbs. Contra the remarks of both work for Turkish without a statistic, mor- pheme and syllable boundaries do not generally coincide. Only 23% of the syllables in nouns (out of 20,433 syllables) are also mor- phemes in the CHILDES database. If we only match boundaries (the beginning and end of a morpheme align with a syllable boundary, ir- respective of whether the syllable and the morpheme are the same), e.g. araba-lar (car-PLU, Turkish) versus the syllables a·ra·ba·lar providing two matches out of 4 syllables, the overlap is 57%. Universal Grammar What allows our system to learn with reasonable efficiency is that the search problem for lexical hypotheses is kept man- ageable by a Universal Grammar (UG) and the current lexi-

On vocabulary size of grammar-based codes

Abstract: We discuss inequalities holding between the vocabulary size, i.e., the number of distinct nonterminal symbols in a grammar-based compression for a string, and the excess length of the respective universal code, i.e., the code-based analog of algorithmic mutual information. The aim is to strengthen inequalities which were discussed in a weaker form in linguistics but shed some light on redundancy of efficiently computable codes. The main contribution of the paper is a construction of universal grammar-based codes for which the excess lengths can be bounded easily.

On vocabulary size of grammar-based codes

Abstract: We discuss inequalities holding between the vocabulary size, i.e., the number of distinct nonterminal symbols in a grammar-based compression for a string, and the excess length of the respective universal code, i.e., the code-based analog of algorithmic mutual information. The aim is to strengthen inequalities which were discussed in a weaker form in linguistics but shed some light on redundancy of efficiently computable codes. The main contribution of the paper is a construction of universal grammar-based codes for which the excess lengths can be bounded easily.

Noam Chomsky: gramatikaren teoria eta hizkuntzaren filosofia

Abstract: This is a survey paper on some of the relevant themes of Chomsky’s linguistics and philosophy of language. We provide some basic biographical information and a discussion of some of the most important aspects of his contribution to the theory of grammar. Chomsky’s research program in the theory of grammar, started 50 years ago with the publication of Syntactic Structures (1957), and can be said to have revolutionized linguistic inquiry, at the same time that it launched what is today called the «cognitive revolution» in the study of mind. We present in a succinct manner some basic concepts of Chomsky’s theorizing, including the idea of a specialized mental organ for the acquisition of language (Universal Grammar), the choice of I-language as the relevant target of theoretical research, and the formal elaboration of an explicit, generative theory of grammar. We also offer a perspective on the way Chomsky’s linguistics conflicts with some classical views in the philosophy of language concerning the mind/body problem, intentionality or the evolution of language. Finally, we present a brief outline of his recent Minimalist Program, which focuses on the nature of the design features of language.

Comparative Correlatives in Italian Sign Language

Abstract: Comparative correlative constructions (the more you run, the more you sweat) are widespread across the languages of the world (Taylor, 2006). Nonetheless, the peculiarities of this construction raise questions that challenge our understanding of the syntax of this specific construction and, more broadly, of how the core and the periphery of Universal Grammar (UG) are organized (Culicover and Jackendoff, 1999). To date, no study has investigated the comparative correlative construction in any sign language. The purpose of the present paper is to fill this gap and provide a survey of the main characteristics of comparative correlatives in Italian Sign Language (LIS).